April 30: Gladys makes her first outdoor and public appearance with a human surrogate, Primate Team Leader Ron Evans, at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. / The Enquirer/Gary Landers

As birthday parties go, it was a private, low-key affair last week at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden.

Weather dictated that it happen indoors and behind the scenes at Gorilla World. There, a small gathering of western lowland gorillas consumed “cake” – made of fruits, rice, sweet potato and biscuit – in honor of a youngster named Gladys who will be 1 year old on Wednesday.

Gladys became nationally known last year when news media told the story of the baby gorilla who was rejected by her mother at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. She was sent to Cincinnati in February to be raised temporarily by a team of human surrogate “mothers” who nurtured her around the clock.

Gladys’ arrival marked the first time the zoo had embarked on a full-fledged surrogacy project designed to be a temporary bridge between the human and gorilla worlds.

The task of the human surrogates was to “gorillafy” Gladys until one of the Cincinnati Zoo’s female gorillas could assume the mama role. For the humans, that meant strapping on black furry vests and knee pads and mimicking gorilla behavior – everything from walking on knuckles to making grunting sounds.

Though the humans never shared space with adult gorillas, the latter were close enough to be able to see, hear and smell Gladys and vice versa. All of of which culminated one day in June when a human left Gladys’ enclosure for the last time and a 31-year-old female gorilla named M’Linzi entered.

And Gladys today?

“She’s thriving. She’s happy. She’s loving being with the girls,” said senior primate keeper Ashley O’Connell, who was one of about 15 human surrogates. “It’s what we envisioned, and it has happened.”

The “girls” include three other gorillas who have been introduced to Gladys: Mara, Samantha and Chewie. The youngster’s socialization will continue; the ultimate goal is to place her in a group that includes a silverback – an adult male – and several females.

“If we missed a week, people were saying ‘When are you going to do the next video of Gladys?’ ” said Pat Story, the zoo’s media projects manager.

There are 29 such videos to date, all of which have been posted on the zoo’s YouTube channel. They will be compiled into a single video, which Dusty Lombardi, an animal care specialist in Columbus, said will be included in the protocol packets.

Pittsburgh Zoo staff had good reason to take a keen interest in Gladys’ progress because they were just a few months behind on a similar project. Last May they removed a baby gorilla from its mother, which had stopped nursing because of breast inflammation. The baby was hand-reared for four months until he could be returned to mom.

Ron Evans, the Cincinnati Zoo’s curator of primates who appeared in most of the videos, also saw them as a way to educate the public about a critically endangered species. Western lowland gorillas live in the rainforests of equatorial Africa. Their numbers are declining because of poaching, habitat destruction and disease.

Cincinnati’s extensive experience with baby gorillas dates back decades; 48 have been born here.

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium pioneered such programs. Lombardi said that, years ago, zoos commonly removed newborn gorillas from their mothers and hand-raised them in nurseries, apart from other gorillas. The thinking was the animals were too valuable to risk something going wrong.

But the animals weren’t learning to be gorillas, and that made for a stressful transition when they finally were placed with their own kind.

Removing babies from mothers is no longer the norm, but there are still times when it must happen, such as illness or, in Gladys’ case, a baby being ignored by mom. That’s where surrogacy comes in. Humans emulate gorilla behavior “so the gorillas can be gorillas,” Lombardi said.

It’s also important to minimize the time a baby spends away from other gorillas.

“No matter how well you think you can imitate an ape, you cannot duplicate what they learn from being with (other apes),” Evans said.

When Gladys arrived here, the zoo was able to draw on the experience of other zoos, including Columbus, which has 14 gorilla surrogacy projects to its credit. Protocols, devised by a committee of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, spell out what zoo staff should do and what to expect.

Evans, the 29-year zooveteran, a burly fellow, was one of the human surrogates. When asked how the project affected him, he paused to compose himself.

“I can’t think of a better experience I’ve had in my career. And I’ve had a lot of good experiences. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you see something else.

“For Gladys’ sake, I’m glad it was successful.”

He continued: “What made me feel really good was how the (zoo) team stepped up. People sacrificed a lot to do this thing all the way through.”

This all happened fairly early in a changing philosophy about how to handle baby gorillas, and the Gladys experience will continue to shape other zoos.

Many were involved in the project, but Evans said his “go-to” people were O’Connell and primate keeper Ashley Ashcraft. When Gladys arrived, O’Connell had a 4-month-old child of her own; Ashcraft was in the midst of planning her wedding.

At the zoo, though, their focus was on Gladys. The work was “mentally and physically demanding,” O’Connell said. But worth it.

“We hope we never have to do it again,” Evans said, “not because we can’t do it, but because it would mean an animal has to be pulled (from its mother) for some reason.” ⬛

I cover eastern Hamilton County communities, Clermont County and the Cincinnati Zoo, and write about local history. Email me at jjohnston@enquirer.com